The relevance of the scheme is that household broadband fibre could allow the domestic market to be opened to video monitoring, among other things. The Tasmanian Government will contribute $A3 million to the 2-year pilot, which is called the Tasmanian Collaborative Optical Leading testbed (TasCOLT). The Hitachisystem offers connection speeds that are 400 times faster than conventional broadband services. Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon says the project offers exciting opportunities. “The significance of this project for Tasmania is summed up, I think, in the fact that this will be the first place in the world outside of Japan that Hitachi’s rolled out this infrastructure,” Mr Lennon said.